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Erick
I hate this passive aggressive type of discussion.
I do not demean you. I have complimented your debate style, your intelligence, I offered to come teach you for free, Bud. I have stated how well you hold up your end in a debate and are honest in what you can and cannot do! Please...go back and read. Come on man!
The only thing I have a said that you could possibly take as negative is that you can't do it, so why listen to anything you have to say about how we do-do it.

How weird is that? that I have to listen to you in every thread try and tell me how I do something that you admit you cannot do?????

I don't get insulted. I just think its ridiculous. Yet you my friend, are thee only guy in all my years here that I have offered to come to- to teach. Why________________?
Because I think you have a sincere interest, but are totally wrong. What does that say?

If you take that honesty of yours and put it work, I think you will see that your retort was not the best of you. Basically telling me I have a disease and want to display power and measure knife sizes, and that I am unable -as yet- to see the big picture of aiki isn't productive. Thankfully I don't think a single person from right here on aikiweb who has trained here has found that to be true. At least I hope not.

A couple of things we certainly do not agree on.
Aiki...is about power Erick. Its just not in the way you think it is. It's like I am speaking a different language to you.
Ueshiba whom you hold up as model knew it and trained it. SO did so many guys in the asian arts that any who disagrees pretty much points to themselves as ignorant.
What you searching for-what everyone is searching for is the magic, that happens when that held power within the body contacts others. It allows you read their every effort and weight change and match and control them. It is so far above what most consider aiki in aikido that it is like talking a different language...to them. It is also why those who have felt it-want it. It speaks for itself.
I'de bet, in ten years, there will be no place in aikido, for those who do not have aiki. Both parties will espouse the spiritual side, both acknowledge the path of Ueshiba and what he desired, but those who do not train aiki, will be judged as incompetent, hollow voices by those...in aikido. Hell its already starting to happen behind the scenes.
One by one Erick, one by one, aikidoka are going out and finding it wherever they can. They feel it, they want it, and they are training it. This -is- the one true aiki that Ueshiba was pointing to.
Hope to still do that meet up one day.

I hate this passive aggressive type of discussion.
I do not demean you.

Ah, you approve of me, then ? I thank you for your support. I have no brief against you personally. People who are reasonable with me say you are, in person, a genuine sort of guy. But even nice guys with tough attitudes (I would hope you consider that a compliment) can also make errors even when trying to do the right thing.

I find that doing dozen's is not a necessary preliminary for substantive criticism and hard questioning of methods and motives. You are proposing things for your own reasons -- so please get over having them questioned and start answering, instead of taking offense that you should be questioned, or merely replying to questions with rhetorical questions that suggest every bad thing but answer nothing. But maybe a few of the same back your way on the larger potential problems with tough attitudes will illustrate the problem -- as below.

And it is not passive -- I just have the manners I respect my grandfather too much to leave aside and I respect the integrity of Jun's forum too much not to concern myself with maintaining here. Heinlein's Law applies down here, even if it is much diminished in Yankeedom.

Quote:

Dan Harden wrote:

How weird is that? that I have to listen to you in every thread try and tell me how I do something that you admit you cannot do?????

Yes, weird, since I have NEVER said how you should or shouldn't be doing anything, and since you never delve into your understanding of the "how" of anything you do, you haven't exactly rebutted anything there. You cannot cite a post with me saying what you falsely attribute me saying. Cheap debate tactics are not substantive. It is a repeated example, among other things, of a reason for my continued attention and criticism on the subject of this discussion. It is of your own making; I just value this art too much, and find misleading argument too distasteful, to let that kind of approach to matters of importance simply go unchecked. I am here in this thread only commenting on what it is said that you are doing, and why you have said you are doing it. I can't change what you say, only you can.

Quote:

Dan Harden wrote:

Basically telling me I have a disease and want to display power and measure knife sizes, and that I am unable -as yet- to see the big picture of aiki isn't productive.

No. I am so sorry. You only said you had weighed the shihan here and found them wanting, and would like to test some select Japanese shihan by your own measures, one-on one (though you doubt they'll measure up, either). Nope, no stick-measuring there, no sirree. I notice you do not and have never named names -- as that would involve taking personal responsibility for such statements, instead of the benefit of cheap and easy innuendo.

Since I expressly included myself (along with most everyone else in modern Western culture) in the cultural disease of instrumentalism, and in need of treatment (among several other very good remedies) of the practice of aikido -- I will disregard the point as misdirected.

Quote:

Dan Harden wrote:

A couple of things we certainly do not agree on.
Aiki...is about power Erick. Its just not in the way you think it is.

If aiki is about power -- the most power wins. I hardly need aiki to have more power, whether I choose to content myself with a .45 longslide with laser sight or a phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range. Your discussion of power constantly seems to aspire to the spirit of the image I just alluded to.

Aikido is about remolding the will AND the body in accord with the nature of aiki, not forging aiki in the body in the service of the will. The first is a moral effort -- the latter is an amoral effort, because it does not concern itself with the quality or purposes of the will.

That is an instrumental approach and part of the same disease. It is directly antithetical to Ueshiba's very specific teaching on aikido and the nature of true budo. Hence, aiki is NOT about power, not in the way you think it is.

You have mentioned before what seems a good deal of resentment at not being taught something. Like it or lump it I have had cause to respect all my lessons. You HAVE said that you do not aspire to teach, haven't you? To teach well one has to take not merely technical responsibility but a moral responsibility for those taught, how they are taught, and what they may do with it. So given some reputation communicated to me, I wonder, what it is you would do if we met to teach me? "Lessons?"

Maybe your unmistakable sense of mission in these discussions is energetic and in that sense commendable.. Maybe it is some sense of retributive or restorative justice for what you feel was withheld from you, I don't know. I do know that it is possible that a teacher may have a moral fault in failing to teach a student something, so I do not disregard the possibility of legitimacy in such resentment. But not all resentment is necessarily justified.

So on to the rhetorical questions:

Since there is no tradition of yaburi in aikido, how can one be sure that a shihan necessarily feels any need to "test" themselves against some impromptu offer of examination? Is it also possible that a teacher who takes the role seriously might fail to teach something for moral concerns intrinsic to someone other than the teacher? Certainly, those concerns may have resolved themselves through later experience and gain of wisdom, might they not? But does that not still color the perception of the earlier denial? Is it not easier on the ego to believe something was inherently defective in the teaching than to acknowledge that one may have been intentionally denied the teaching, and for just cause or personal fault? Is there perspective enough, perhaps now, to consider such possibilities seriously, and to approach the question with a bit more objectivity?

Erick,
As nicely as I can say it, you don't have a clue. Did you ever wonder why most of us who have gone to experience aiki in person have pretty much stopped replying to your posts? Did it ever occur to you that all the times we've said you have it wrong, that maybe, the simplest solution is really the correct one? Get out there and meet Dan. Then apply that mind of yours to what you experience. At that point, I think things would get interesting.

Erick,
As nicely as I can say it, you don't have a clue. Did you ever wonder why most of us who have gone to experience aiki in person have pretty much stopped replying to your posts? Did it ever occur to you that all the times we've said you have it wrong, that maybe, the simplest solution is really the correct one? Get out there and meet Dan. Then apply that mind of yours to what you experience. At that point, I think things would get interesting.

Mark

Are we reading the same post from Erick? As far as I read, he is saying the discussion has turned in on itself where there is no possibility of actual discussion. The only resolution has been proposed to go out and find an approved-of individual and make sure you come back with an understanding of what other people hope you would find.

But after finding cold shoulders and dead-ends, you try to discuss the information in hopes of starting a dialogue to learn more about it and where to find it, and are met with the same "Go out and figure out what aiki is, then we can discuss it." when that is exactly why people are trying to discuss the topic in depth, on these forums, in the first place?

If for every time someone told another person to "go out and feel it", they themselves raised their hands to lived up to their talk, and actually share with people in person, we'd be getting a lot farther.

Cold shoulders and dead ends?
There are dozens and dozens of people who managed to get out and make it happen. Did you not go to any of the get togethers? There are also guys in various areas training together. Have you tried contacting them?
I can understand the frustration, but the one thing that has hampered things is that the very, very few who know things and are willing to share don't do it for a living. So it's hard. The good news is that
a) enough witness has shown they are real and accessible
b) They can be learned in a far shorter time frame than the typical 20 yr long do kata cycle and hope for the best

So it stands to reason that as we get out legs under us- more will happen. I guess I'm trying to point out that it isn't a question of a lack of integrity, or holding back and giving a cold shoulder, its more human, and nicer than that. If I may speak personally I am swamped with requests Lee. I can't even respond to them all. So I am trying to figure out how to do more get togethers here, but not as a formal "seminar" where I have to get geared up to "present materials" and be judged on how well I presented. If I can manage to do them in a more relaxed loose format like I normally do in my own dojo I would be willing to do it more often. Case in point is that I am spending the weekend preparing for a Zoning variance with pictures, drawings, legal arguments, and area precedence for approval. It isn't fun.
Budo for me is fun. When it isn't I won't do it anymore. Anyway just some thoughts from one person trying to figure out how to manage sharing material. So you have some sources out there and at least a few opportunities at least every year. And most of the work is done back at home anyway.

Cold shoulders and dead ends?
There are dozens and dozens of people who managed to get out and make it happen. Did you not go to any of the get togethers? There are also guys in various areas training together. Have you tried contacting them?
I can understand the frustration, but the one thing that has hampered things is that the very, very few who know things and are willing to share don't do it for a living. So it's hard. The good news is that
a) enough witness has shown they are real and accessible
b) They can be learned in a far shorter time frame than the typical 20 yr long do kata cycle and hope for the best

So it stands to reason that as we get out legs under us- more will happen. I guess I'm trying to point out that it isn't a question of a lack of integrity, or holding back and giving a cold shoulder, its more human, and nicer than that. If I may speak personally I am swamped with requests Lee. I can't even respond to them all. So I am trying to figure out how to do more get togethers here, but not as a formal "seminar" where I have to get geared up to "present materials" and be judged on how well I presented. If I can manage to do them in a more relaxed loose format like I normally do in my own dojo I would be willing to do it more often. Case in point is that I am spending the weekend preparing for a Zoning variance with pictures, drawings, legal arguments, and area precedence for approval. It isn't fun.
Budo for me is fun. When it isn't I won't do it anymore. Anyway just some thoughts from one person trying to figure out how to manage sharing material. So you have some sources out there and at least a few opportunities at least every year. And most of the work is done back at home anyway.

If people are busy, or have any number of personal reasons for not discussing something, I'm not gonna fault them for it and it's perfectly fine. But when people are a bit cavalier in saying "go out and find it" and in the same sentence pointing at others to shoulder the responsibility of showing, it's just sending people in circles, because no one is ultimately accepting the responsibility.

And yep, I have gone out, and I've felt - Akuzawa and others - and the what I learned is the bulk of my training today. And ya know what, I've come to believe, based on what I felt, that the subject ain't as simple as many are making it out be. There are differences between what you all are doing - they might lead to pseudo-similar ends, but they are definitely not the same. Maybe it is because I found something well off the beaten path and had a grounding in it before going out to see people like Akuzwawa to compare, but I just can no longer see it as a one method, one result thing anymore. There is still a TON to be learned by discussion of what various camps are doing and how the methods differ. But the discussion never ever progresses that far to the level of true interchange.

Nicely said. But a suggestion. You are a writer? You should make closer distinctions. What is the difference between clues and evidence? Simply stated, one is used to find knowledge to solve a mystery, something you don't know. The other is used of something you know to be true, but to prove objectively why it is true.

I didn't need to understand aerodynamics to learn to fly, but there are things that one may learn to to do with a flying machine in some flight regimes that, in wanting to extend that performance into other flight regimes it would really be helpful to prove or disprove the several plausible principles by which it occurs. Sometimes, despite best efforts (of better minds than mine) it can't resolve to one principle or another and one has two (or more) equally good, but mutually exclusive ones -- like with magnetic field conventions. In that context, a disagreement by someone who believes that only one convention can possibly be "true" evidences a lack of understanding of the proper uses and limits of such conventions.

I don't know what you know or don't, and the situation is mutual.

Quote:

Mark Murray wrote:

Did you ever wonder why most of us who have gone to experience aiki in person have pretty much stopped replying to your posts?

Actually, it really didn't cross my mind, because despite addressing these discussions critically, I am not really that concerned one way or the other with those of you who have. Check your assumptions.

Are we reading the same post from Erick? As far as I read, he is saying the discussion has turned in on itself where there is no possibility of actual discussion. The only resolution has been proposed to go out and find an approved-of individual and make sure you come back with an understanding of what other people hope you would find.

I don't know. How many posts of Erick's have you read? In regards to Erick's posting quantitatively and qualitatively, I would say that there is little in the way of discussing "aiki".

As for proposed solution -- no one, and I have yet to see any of them, has ever said anything remotely about coming back with "an understanding of what other people hope you would find."

But, coming from quite a few people, IHTBF is important. For those who don't know, IHTBF means It Has To Be Felt. What you take away after that is your own personal experience. *And* coming from quite a few people, what they *thought* they knew before and what they began to understand after experience it, was completely different.

But, then again, we've been over these same things again and again. If you haven't read all the posts, might be a good read.

Quote:

Lee Salzman wrote:

But after finding cold shoulders and dead-ends, you try to discuss the information in hopes of starting a dialogue to learn more about it and where to find it, and are met with the same "Go out and figure out what aiki is, then we can discuss it." when that is exactly why people are trying to discuss the topic in depth, on these forums, in the first place?

If for every time someone told another person to "go out and feel it", they themselves raised their hands to lived up to their talk, and actually share with people in person, we'd be getting a lot farther.

Hmmm ... maybe you just missed all the posts? I don't know, Lee. But, if you go back and reread some threads, you'll find that some of us have started a dialogue to learn more about it and where to find it.

Off top of my head, see AikidoTM and Aiki...do thread here. See http://www.internal-aiki.com/ . See E-Budo threads. Budd has posted that he travels and is up to meeting people. Rob has said as much. I've posted that when I travel, I'd be up for meeting people.

I've posted a few times about exercises I thought would help people. Rob did before me. Dan and Mike have. There is, literally, hundreds of pages of material covering theory to exercises out there. I know, I spent a long time doing the research and putting it together. There's more there than I can digest in months. I've started threads with questions that have gone nowhere.

So, from my perspective, I see things completely, 180 degrees, different than what you do. I see us talking and no one wanting to listen or engage in conversation. I see people staying in their box and trying to drag our version of "aiki" into it with them when we've said repeatedly, from experience, that it doesn't fit and isn't the same.

And yep, I have gone out, and I've felt - Akuzawa and others - and the what I learned is the bulk of my training today. And ya know what, I've come to believe, based on what I felt, that the subject ain't as simple as many are making it out be. There are differences between what you all are doing - they might lead to pseudo-similar ends, but they are definitely not the same. Maybe it is because I found something well off the beaten path and had a grounding in it before going out to see people like Akuzwawa to compare, but I just can no longer see it as a one method, one result thing anymore. There is still a TON to be learned by discussion of what various camps are doing and how the methods differ. But the discussion never ever progresses that far to the level of true interchange.

Well, we're certainly all eyes and ears. If you think it isn't as simple as what we're making it out to be, please explain. I'm being serious here. I don't think it's simple, either. I think it gets complex and hard. But, I also think there are exercises one can do that aren't as complex or hard and still help. In that aspect, working on things can be "simple".

And if it's not one method, one result and you've had experiences to be able to compare and have had the grounding in it for a start, then, I, for one, am interested. What made them different? What are the different results? What makes the methods differ? Can you compare and contrast them? I'm asking questions so that we can progress further into the level of interchange. You seem to have found information that possibly some of us have yet to reach. Or maybe we've experienced things but haven't put it together yet?

Nicely said. But a suggestion. You are a writer? You should make closer distinctions. What is the difference between clues and evidence? Simply stated, one is used to find knowledge to solve a mystery, something you don't know. The other is used of something you know to be true, but to prove objectively why it is true.

Not a very good attempt to sidetrack the issue. Being as smart as you are, and yes, I think you are smart and intelligent, I had thought that you would recognize an idiom. Of course, breaking things down into rotational dynamics as you do, It would be my guess that you broke the structured sentence down into words and focused on specific parts. Rather like missing the forest for the trees, I would surmise.

Anyway, best of luck in your efforts. Maybe one of these days, we'll have a chance to meet up in person.

It would be my guess that you broke the structured sentence down into words and focused on specific parts. Rather like missing the forest for the trees, I would surmise.

Anyway, best of luck in your efforts. Maybe one of these days, we'll have a chance to meet up in person.

I studied the Chinese side of Yomeigaku, with some degree of depth, and he is the thinker outside of Western tradition that I take most seriously, and the reason I train rather than merely read. Making a judgment, much less a guess, distinguishing what other people know from what they do, in that specific context, is yet more problematic than distinguishing what you or I know from what you or I do.

I commend to you the study of that principle of his, and look forward to meeting some time.

Are we reading the same post from Erick? /../ The only resolution has been proposed to go out and find an approved-of individual and make sure you come back with an understanding of what other people hope you would find.

/../ try to discuss the information in hopes of starting a dialogue to learn more about it and where to find it, and are met with the same "Go out and figure out what aiki is, then we can discuss it." when that is exactly why people are trying to discuss the topic in depth, on these forums, in the first place?

If for every time someone told another person to "go out and feel it", they themselves raised their hands to lived up to their talk, and actually share with people in person, we'd be getting a lot farther.

Sorry, nothing personal, but you're talking absolute nonsense here (just to clarify, I don't read any of Eric's posts because he's long since added to my ignore list). Eric doesn't do what he's been told to do, and instead attempts to bring discussions around to his pet theories and expositions of a fantastic reality in his own head, which is all well and good by itself and educational and all that, but has nothing remotely to do with internal power in aikido. Since he's oblivious to taking even the absolutely most important and basic advice from countless people here, he doesn't deserve any further audience, nor support for his views.

As for people sharing after having felt some "goods" someplace: there is so much of it now around that one cannot even read one thread without coming across people talking about it. There is, to put it bluntly, no excuse for stubbornly held ignorance.

And yes, I agree with you (and I think Mark Murray, you read Lee incorrectly here) that things are most defintely not as simple as they are made out to be: but the complexity that can be recognized and also tackled practically is a function of the training effort put in, and the basic ideas (the only ones that can currently easily be discussed online I think) are about as simple as they have been exposited here. In fact, things could be phrased in a much more complex manner too, without any benefit to any reader. Similarly, since you mentioned Akuzawa sensei, using the supposeldy simple concepts of "frame", "reconfiguration" thereof, and use of such in movement so that there is no more such thing as "punching" and "kicking" simply cannot easily be comprehended without direct feel, some years (?) of training.

Sorry, nothing personal, but you're talking absolute nonsense here (just to clarify, I don't read any of Eric's posts because he's long since added to my ignore list).

The hallmark of the open mind.

Quote:

Gernot Hassenpflug wrote:

Eric doesn't do what he's been told to do, ...

Well, kudos to you, 'cause you ABSOLUTELY nailed that one. Of course, you won't read this so the comment is really not for your benefit anyway. You need the criticism, whether you know it or not. Of course, you don't know it, because you quit listening. Is this a principle of your budo? Sorry, I forgot. You are "Not Listening." Let me know how that works out for you. IS there some way to signal online that you have your fingers in yours ears making nonsense sounds to avoid listening to things you do not already agree with? Healthy, that.

You might get some appreciation for the practical complexity inherent in intellectually simple (or simplified) principles by reading the latest posts on the Aunkai BBS.

The bulk of which I have seen better in time-share brochures with testimonials, less the kana, of course. Sorry, forgot the "Not Listening" thing. Please disregard (oh, you already are).

It is not that it is not useful, just that it is not unique. Only this quote of Ark sparked familiarity: "If it is free, the body will act spontaneously and will hit without awareness." That actually sums the foundation of my experience in aikido as it was initially demonstrated to me in the beginning and as I have come to know it in three separate traditions of practice, all good in their own ways, so I have no training method to sell or create a market share for. The mindfulness that I have to maintain NOT to hit my partner a couple of times through the course of the movement that I did not plan just seems really quite daunting, at times -- and I have partners who take rare (and wincingly capable) delight in hitting me if I give them the opening to do it.

Those who have stopped listening to different questions, always seem to have the same answer.

And if it's not one method, one result and you've had experiences to be able to compare and have had the grounding in it for a start, then, I, for one, am interested. What made them different? What are the different results? What makes the methods differ? Can you compare and contrast them? I'm asking questions so that we can progress further into the level of interchange. You seem to have found information that possibly some of us have yet to reach. Or maybe we've experienced things but haven't put it together yet?

Thanks,
Mark

Okay, here's an example: a pathway from one shoulder to the opposite foot. I can think of a bunch of different questions surrounding it and how you might train it.

I have so far seen what I would broadly paint out as strategies for how this movement organization is trained, I would list: 1) passive - by subjecting the pathway to external stress such that force will fail to get from point A to point B if all joints in the chain are not properly active, 2) semi-active - putting mental awareness along said pathway but without any external stress, 3) active - actively engaging muscular functions along said pathway but without any external stress. All of these can be expressed both in movement or in complete stillness. All of this has some relation to the following stuff.

And just because the brain can properly organize all that movement, do all the joints/muscular functions along the chain need to be strengthened independently of the actual wiring in of movement organization to be able to utilize it to best effect? How so?

Is the pathway from A to B's only purpose in life to conduct force two ways, or can it conduct force in any direction, by translating or contracting as a unit in any direction? How do you make the pathway agile so that, under rapidly varying stress, its direction can also rapidly vary, and that its direction can rapidly vary at will?

In so far as it relates to removing slack in movement, is being in a state of movement or stillness the only function of this pathway that needs to be studied? What about movement to non-movement? Non-movement to movement? Is non-movement relative relaxation, or relative tensing, or either depending on circumstance? How quickly and drastically can these transitions be mediated? These translate into acceleration from a point, and impact at a point. How does that relate to striking, blocking, throwing, stepping, etc. and how to train it?

And once I've got that pathway wired in according to various desired purposes, what do I do with it in someone else? If it makes me strong in a circumstance, can I utilize what I know about it to stress it and break it apart in another person? Do I stress it by merely giving them an obstacle they can not overcome, by putting it under an active level of stress they are not accustomed to, by shocking it with such rapidity that it engenders a reflexive response? How does that relate to my own pathway, that it is always properly active or passively there, as the case may be, and ensuring it can't be shut down, under static or moving conditions?

That's the lens under which I was originally taught to view the subject and which I am biased towards now. Can all these issues be navigated by different means and produce the same results? YMMV I guess!

Man this is turning into so much bickering that I cannot pull out a reasonable problem statement to address.

As I understand it:

a) There are several people teaching skills and producing faster results than the vast majority of everyone else.

b) Everyone who has experienced those people have reported being impressed without exception.

c) People who have only been training with these people for relatively short amounts of time 2-3 years are impressing many people that they meet.

d) While there are different levels of depth an/or focus among these people who are teaching aiki skills directly and relatively faster than most - they all agree on common expressions for what they are doing.

Now is it possible that they are all a bit tricked by exactly what is happening to produce such impressive resuts - and really missing a better explanation? Sure. Are they EVER going to consider the source of a new more universal theory as remotely interesting if the person proposing the new ideas does not have a similar reputation for being able to do these things themselves AND doesn't go to see them to discuss the matter from a common experience? No. Of course not.

Man this is turning into so much bickering that I cannot pull out a reasonable problem statement to address.

As I understand it:

a) There are several people teaching skills and producing faster results than the vast majority of everyone else.

b) Everyone who has experienced those people have reported being impressed without exception.

c) People who have only been training with these people for relatively short amounts of time 2-3 years are impressing many people that they meet.

d) While there are different levels of depth an/or focus among these people who are teaching aiki skills directly and relatively faster than most - they all agree on common expressions for what they are doing.

Now is it possible that they are all a bit tricked by exactly what is happening to produce such impressive resuts - and really missing a better explanation? Sure. Are they EVER going to consider the source of a new more universal theory as remotely interesting if the person proposing the new ideas does not have a similar reputation for being able to do these things themselves AND doesn't go to see them to discuss the matter from a common experience? No. Of course not.

So what is the confusion?

Rob

That about sums up my thoughts. People who are interested know where to go, those who aren't are welcome to however they intellectualize/train.

Man this is turning into so much bickering that I cannot pull out a reasonable problem statement to address.

It is not meant to be. Let me summarize your accurate summation to get to the point of the criticism -- you notably take my comments, even the critical ones in a somewhat different spirit from, well, other people.

Quote:

Rob Liberti wrote:

a) .. several people producing faster results ... those people have reported being impressed without exception ... c) People training for relatively short amounts of time 2-3 years are impressing many people that they meet. ... these people who are teaching aiki skills directly and relatively faster than most - they all agree on common expressions for what they are doing.

Indisputably, that is what is reported. Now the two themes of your observation are 1) faster results and 2) impressing others.

And then lastly:

Quote:

Rob Liberti wrote:

.. the source of a new more universal theory ... does not have a similar reputation ... AND doesn't go to see them to discuss the matter from a common experience? No. Of course not. .. So what is the confusion?

None at all. Now, my points in kind. In most organic things, faster growth tends not to to be deep or durable growth. Your situation coming from a firm base is an entirely different matter when it arises from a simple desire to broaden experience.

Plateau stages of growth, everyone gets them, because it is the natural pattern of all growth. That is also an aspect of of In-Yo pattern.Vulnerability exists to such entreaties (faster, more impressive). Shifting to an accelerated mode may have its commendations, but let us not pretend they are without possible costs.

Impressing others is a door into the moral problem that troubles me seeming creeping more into aikido. It was always there, of course, people are still human, but it was a recognized fault and aberration -- not a sought for attribute of training or teaching. A number of those people you mention "impressed" many people without ever meeting them. As to the type of problem presented with this I suggest reading closely Prof. Goldsbury's most recent "transmission essay." about the role and the nature of the influence wielded by Deguchi.

Reputation is only as good as the critical opinions of a person with personal knowledge that form it. But when reputation is framed on how impressive person is, well, again read that portion of the essay.

If someone gets personality and reputation in front of the work it makes the person the issue and not the work. One may interpret that badly, of course, but only if one is wishing to be impressed rather than reading to see if something is simply true or useful. If reputation is the issue then even merely physical or conceptual criticisms is too easily perceived as tearing reputation down.

But if I am successful in my effort, reputation will not matter as much, -- more people will have the tools to be far more critical -- of themselves and what they are, and should be taught. And of what they are actually seeing in the videos that started the thread.

1) Common Experience. We can all discuss aikido waza for instance with some degree of "aikiweb-universal" understanding. We all have felt kotegaeshi as uke and nage at various levels of understanding. We we can all discuss it. Same goes for sankyo. Really, same goes for teachers who are complaining about the prices of insurance, the troubles getting new students interested these days, what-have-you.

There is little common experience out there to discuss aiki...do. There is some, and this may be the best place to discuss it. But coming up with ways to evaluate it critically devoid of that common experience really has little chance of acceptance. It is too much like asking people to mold their experience into something they don't feels represents it too well.

2) Second issue: the will.

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Aikido is about remolding the will AND the body in accord with the nature of aiki, not forging aiki in the body in the service of the will. The first is a moral effort -- the latter is an amoral effort, because it does not concern itself with the quality or purposes of the will.

I think this is super interesting. However, here is where my personal issue comes in. I WILL NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES discuss any further my thoughts on individual will matching up with universal will and how I think aiki training achieves that in a thread which is in the "non-aikido category. I'm drawing a line in the sand on that one. That IS AIKIDO. I'll discuss it in the general forum, or the spiritual forum but I just cannot do it here. Sorry but it is a personal boundary.

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In most organic things, faster growth tends not to to be deep or durable growth.

I have no issue with this. However, I'll offer a different perspective. Having solved many extemely complex problems in my day job, I have found that once I get to the heart of the issue, I tend to start making much faster progress - which ends up being the only durable growth. Seems to apply to the aiki issue as well.

I see us talking and no one wanting to listen or engage in conversation. I see people staying in their box and trying to drag our version of "aiki" into it with them when we've said repeatedly, from experience, that it doesn't fit and isn't the same.

My view is that this occurs plenty all around. I won't get too metaphysical, but I think this is the central issue to the Human Condition in a nutshell, something none of us is particularly good at. I'd describe the primary problem you're refering to as being one of personality differences; not of whether or not folks are listening to what you all have to say. In fact, as for the regulars around here, I've seen people mostly listening, but maybe you're describing other venues too.

As for the matter of how a person becomes as good as possible at performing aiki, I don't think language has much to do with it. Acquisition of physical skills seems very much to be a physical process; the surrounding language used becomes almost meaningless to me next to this fact. So with that in mind most of these conversations don't seem to really apply to how you get better, but in how you should describe that process. That description doesn't seem to go very far beyond some general references to grounding and then saying go out and experience it (apart from some awesome descriptions by Rob Job I've read on how to do some of the Aunkai exercises). And that's not so bad in and of itself...in fact it's ideal, from my perspective, but unless you're going to correct the actual message from someone like Erick, I don't see how there should be much more to say beyond that reminder to go out and experience it.
Now that I've said that, I feel it's important to note that I've so far only been skimming this enormous multi-thread topic, so my observations are far from comprehensive. I'm just giving my lay-person's take on this and hoping to get some food for thought so i can continue to refine my impressions.

There is little common experience out there to discuss aiki...do. ... There is some, and this may be the best place to discuss it. But coming up with ways to evaluate it critically devoid of that common experience ...

If I am right, and I always acknowledge that I may be proved wrong in aspects of the whole or the parts, then aiki is NOT a conscious experience, no matter how you train it. The biomechanical limits of action mediated by spinal reflexes and some learned cerebellar patterning, does not leave time for cerebral appreciation in the moment of action. One recognizes that it HAS happened, but one is not consciously directing that it happen or be deployed in particular way. It may be restrained or leashed, in many regards, but that gets into the issues of the place of will in training, so I leave it there.

If so, then it cannot be a matter of common experience, because what is occurring is not within the realm of conscious experience. The brain has difficulty communicating the experience to other parts of the brain, much less symbolically to other people. These debates therefore will always recur. The variety of the ways that O Sensei's Deshi responded to their perceptions of the art are testament to that. Even if the repeat players in these debates all kicked off tomorrow, the debate would resume with new people and perspectives, because everyone of them is looking at an experience that must be reconstructed cerebrally, when it is primarily reflexive and cerebellar, and not within easy reach of our symbolic representation.

It is in the realm of conscious awareness to create training for improving such intuitive action, but only the training, not the action, is subject to the conscious will. But the critical view ofthe action sought, by whatever method, is always at one remove from the reality of the thing itself. It is in this sense (as much as the ethical sense, which I will leave aside as you request) that I address the place of the will in directing the body in training.

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Rob Liberti wrote:

Having solved many extremely complex problems in my day job, I have found that once I get to the heart of the issue, I tend to start making much faster progress - which ends up being the only durable growth. Seems to apply to the aiki issue as well.

But is aiki a problem to be solved? Despite my technical bent in its study, I do not think this is so. You mentioned above that people who are teaching your understanding of internal skills -- all agree on common expressions.

I am not trying to solve a problem; I am trying to describe conditions of action. Which is one reason why I run afoul of their socially defined discussion, not because I think they are wrong in the larger sense, nor necessarily even in the narrower, nor yet because of wanting to ruin the party. The conflict arises because I want to provide for terms of discussion that are largely independent of any need for agreement on terms -- and because of my premise, for which I have objective support, that all discussions of this topic are derived from an abstracted experience in ways that their approach only tends to disguise, rather than illuminate.